'barabara' originates from Japanese, specifically from the mimetic root 'bara', where the reduplication expresses the repeated or multiple sense of scattering or separation.

'barabara' developed as a reduplicated mimetic (ideophonic) form in Early Modern Japanese and appears in modern Japanese as the onomatopoeic/mimetic expression 'ばらばら'.

Initially, it conveyed the audible or visible sense of things being scattered or falling apart; over time it has remained largely stable and now covers both physical scattering and figurative disunity.